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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Perth Printing Industry
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Perth
David Morison, born in 1792, was the son of the second marriage.
Like his father, David was an accomplished Greek and Hebrew scholar
and, in addition, he was an artist of some ability. He was only
17 when his father died leaving a widow and family totally dependent
on the business. David had been educated as a lawyer but on his
father’s death he was compelled to take over the family business.
After making himself proficient in letterpress printing, binding,
and publishing, he added a lithographic department to the business.
It is said that he used this new process not only for the pictorial
illustrations of books but also for their decoration. Examples of
the work he produced can be seen in the Catalogue of the Gray Library,
Kinfauns Castle, the decoration work of which was drawn on stone
by Morison himself and printed by Peter Cochrane who, like Morison,
was self-taught. He also wrote the text and lithographed the drawings
of Colonel Murray’s Scenes in Scotland.
David Morison did not remain in the publishing business for long.
He had considerable knowledge of chemistry and established the Perth
Ink Manufactory, later turning his attention to colour printing
on various textures for wallpapers. The celebrity of the firm as
a publishing house ended with David Morison but this was offset
by its repu-tation for bookbinding. A number of journeymen were
regularly employed in the Watergate bind-ery and the standard of
their craftsmanship was highly regarded, particularly by county
families for their private libraries.
In the supplement to mark the Perthshire Advertiser’s centenary
in 1929, Alex Scott wrote of the Morison Press: ‘At the present
day, little is known of the important part furthered and enacted
in our city by the several generations of a family which, during
a period of over eighty years, were the means of establishing an
industry which may be fittingly termed the mainspring of our civilisation.
From the evidence they have left behind them, one can discern the
spirit they severally showed of promoting the craft towards a high
distinction, the outcome of the cultured mind and thoughtful discrimination.
Robert Morison, the founder, had along with his business capacity,
a rich literary talent; a man, we would imagine, having the in-terests
of his native city at heart, and keenly concerned in its history
and traditions. This literary talent appears to have been transmitted
to his successors, and to his son Robert particularly is ascribed
the privilege of supplying important information to the author of
Waverley when engaged in his great work, The Fair Maid of Perth.’
In 1809 the Morisons established the Perthshire Courier and Farmer’s
Journal and it remained in their hands until 1853 when it was taken
over by James Dewar. For twenty years the paper had no rival, but
in 1829 the agitation in connection with reform saw the launch of
the Strathmore Journal in Coupar Angus. When this rival paper moved
to Perth it was renamed the Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore
Journal and printed and published by John Taylor in the King’s
Arms Close, High Street.
When first published it cost 7d and comprised four pages, each with
six columns of very small type.
Peter Drummond in one of his Perthshire sketches gives a graphic
description of the printing of the Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore
Journal when it was managed by George Penny and printed by John
Taylor. A brother-in-law of Taylor invented and constructed a machine
for printing the paper more speedily than the existing hand press.
Unfortunately, it had been imperfectly constructed and, although
the results were fairly good, it was continually breaking down On
publishing days, Drummond’s description was of ‘Taylor
covered with ink, struggling amidst a labyrinth of wheels, flaps,
and threads, fretting, despairing, cursing, not loud but deep; and
Penny, with a nose like an illuminated carbuncle, holding a dripping,
heart-broken, tallow candle away in the vortex of the tangled thicket.’
The press became known as Taylor’s Infernal Machine. History
is silent on the fate of this press, but it is known that 1857 saw
the first use of steam power in the Perth printing office of Mr
Robert Whittet, senior. It is claimed that the first publication
to be produced in Perth using steam power was the initial number
of Excelsior, Murrays’ Royal Asylum Gazette.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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